Step 2 Help

[Liberator]

Hey Eric,

After a long while I’ve decided to pick up your book and work through it. Step 1 was a success, but I’m have some trouble on step 2 I was hoping to get your opinion on.

I’m actually finding it to be more anxiety-filled to go stand next to a girl and NOT say anything than to actually just say something – anything – at all. Let me give you some situations I’ve run into and show you why this is coming up for me:

Situation 1) I’m sitting down late at night at the gym working out. I’m on a machine and a girl I’m attracted to walks through the front door and is heading for the changing room in the back. She’s about 15 feet from me, about to walk past me off to my left. Instantly I think – OK go! But I realize she’s B-lining it for a place I cannot enter. I’m also sitting down. I stand up to go over to her, but I can’t walk in front of her like the book suggests without headed myself towards the girl’s locker room. At best I walk weirdly in front of her and stop in her path, or I walk weirdly behind where she was as she quickly walks by, leaving me standing in the middle of an empty walkway. (There’s literally nothing of interest in the walkway where she’s going – and I mean nothing, no paintings, no clocks, just a blank wall). I simply cannot figure out (without talking to her) why I would get up and stand near her in a walk way without saying a word. Seems super creepy.

Situation 2) I enter a bar or coffee shop. She’s sitting in a booth on the FAR end of an empty bar/cafe. There’s 20 empty tables between her and I. I try to follow the book and use excuses to meander around the room, pretending to look at the art on the walls and slowly work my way to her. But standing right next to the ONLY girl in the joint, in a massive empty room, staring at the wall feels SO intense. She looks up from what she’s doing and just stares at me….like “what in the world is this guy doing?” You can see the people that work there looking at me too, just standing there next to her. This step is supposed to EASE me into approaching, this feels WORSE than approaching. Honest to god I would rather just say hi or ask her a question instead of standing there doing absolutely nothing! At least then my actions would make sense or have some sort of basis.

Can you advise on what to do in situations where you walking up next to a girl and not saying a word feels immensely creepy, intense and contrived? I know the goal is eventually to say something, but I’m trying to respect the process and take the steps one at a time.

Thanks for the help. Loving the book. 🙂

[Eric Disco]

Hey Man,

This is a problem of logistics. Logistics refers to dealing with physically or socially complex situations. Some other difficult situations may include a supermarket where the girl won’t stand still and is bouncing around the produce aisle. Or a girl lying on a blanket in the middle of a lawn in a park.

In these situations it can be a lot easier to have something to say to her to give you a reason to walk up to her. Since you are not at Step 3 yet, I advise skipping doing anything involving difficult logistics and just practice positioning in situations were there is an excuse for you to get next to her. Most situations won’t be as difficult as the ones we described here and if they are, just don’t do them for now. You should have enough opportunities to practice without doing the most difficult ones.

Eventually, you will be able to do these or at least attempt them. That being said, even the best guys in the world will have an easier time starting a conversation with a girl in an easy situation than a difficult one. Obstacles are obstacles no matter how good you get. In fact, once you get good, the only thing you worry about are logistics. I rarely worry about what I’m going to say, what she is going to think of me, whether I’m going to creep her out, etc. The only thing I worry about is tackling logistics like the ones described here. How do I get next to her in a casual way so that I can casually start talking with her? You will be dealing with this question for the rest of your life, no matter how good you get. That’s why Step 2 is so important, it gets you to start thinking physically instead of verbally.

Eric

[Liberator]

Fantastic answer, thank you.

I had just assumed I needed to approach every single girl I see regardless of logistics in an effort to get my body used to the action, as mentioned in the book.

I realize now that if presented with an uphill battle and a downhill battle, simply don’t choose the uphill one if an easier option exists. My fear is that I will use this ‘logistical hurtle’ excuse to talk myself out of approaches as my brain is very clever at finding ways to tell me I can’t do something with self-talk — “Well Eric told you to not approach difficult logistical situations, and this looks like a difficult logistical situation to me so let’s just go ahead and skip this one!”

Hopefully, as I progress I will be able to discern between logistically constricting circumstance and something I simply am too scared to do.

Thanks again for the help. 🙂

[Author]

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